Full well I know the fmile upon that faceFull well I know thofe features' every grace! But what is this-my M.'s mortal partThere is a fubject beggars all thine art:

Paint but her mind, by Heav'n! and thou shalt be,

Shalt be my more than pagan deity.-
Nature may poffibly have caft, of old,

Some other beauty in as fair a mould

But all in vain you'll search the world to find Another beauty with fo fair mind.

LETTER

To the Sáme.

XI.

Huntingdon, Jan. 1776.

LEST I fhould not fee you this morning, I will fcribble this before I mount honeft Crop; that I may leave it for you.

This is a new year. May every day of it be happy to my M. May-but don't you know there's not a wifh of blifs I do not wish you?

A new year-I like not this word. There may be new lovers.--I lie-there may not. M. will never change her H. I am fure fhe'll never change him for a truer lover.

A new

A new year-76. Where fhall we be in 77? Where in 78? Where in 79? Where in 80?

In mifery or blifs, in life or death, in heaven or hell-wherever you are, there may H. be alfo!

The foldier whom you defired me to beg off, returns thanks to his unknown benefact refs.Difcipline must be kept up in our way; but I am fure you will do me the juftice to believe I am no otherwife a friend to it.

LETTER XII.

To the Same.

Huntingdon, Feb. 8. 1776.

SINCE the thaw fent me from H. the day be fore yesterday, I have written four times to you, and believe verily I fhall write four-and-forty times to you in the next four days. The blifs I have enjoyed with you these three weeks has increased, not diminished, my affection. Three weeks and more in the fame house with my M. 'Twas more than I deferved. And yet, to be obliged to refign you every night to another! By these eyes, by your still dearer eyes, I don't think I flept three hours during the whole three weeks. Yet, yet, 'twas blifs. How lucky, that I was preffed to stay at H. the

H. the night the fnow fet in! Would it had fnowed till doomfday! But, then, you must have been his every night till doomsday. Now, my happy time may come.

Though I had not strength to refift when under the fame roof with you, ever fince we parted, the recollection that it was his roof has made me miferable. Whimfical, that he should bid you prefs me, when I at first refused his folicitation. Is H. guilty of a breach of hofpitality?

I must not question-I must not think, I must not write.-But, we will meet as we fixed. Does Robin Gray fufpect?-Suspect! And is H. a fubject for suspicion?

LETTER XIII,

To the Same.

Huntingdon, 16 Feb. 1776.

EVERY time I see you I discover some new charm, fome new accomplishment. Before Heaven, there was not a title of flattery in what I told you yesterday. Nothing can be flattery which I fay of you, for no invention, no poetry, no any thing can come up to what I think of you.

One of our Kings faid of the citizens of his good city of London, that when he confidered

their

their riches, he was in admiration at their underftandings--when he confidered their understandings, he was in admiration at their riches. Just so do I with regard to your perfon and your mind, but for a different reafon.-Nature was in one of her extravagant moods when she put you together. She might have made two captivating women out of you--by my foul, half a dozen! Your turn for mufic, and excellence in it, would be a fufficient stock of charms for the most disagreeable woman to fet up with in life. Mufic has charms to do things moft incredible, mufic

Now fhall I, with the good-humoured, digreffive pen of our favourite Montaigne in his entertaining Effays, begin with love, and end with a treatise upon the Gamut.

Yet to talk of mufic, is to talk of you. M. and mufic are the fame. What is music without you And harmony has tuned your mind, your perfon, your every look, and word, and action.

?

Obferve--when I write to you I never pretend to write fenfe. I have no head; you have made me all heart, from top to bottom. Senfe-why, I am out of my fenfes, and have been thefe fix weeks. Were it poffible my scrawls to you could ever be read by any one but you, I should be

called a madman. I certainly am either curft or bleft (I know not which) with paffions wild as the torrent's roar. Notwithstanding I take this fimile from water, the element, out of which I am formed, is fire: Swift had water in his brain: I have a burning coal of fire: your hand can light it up to rapture, rage, or madness. Men, real men, have never been wild enough for my admiration: it has wandered into the ideal world of fancy. Othello (but he should have put himself to death in his wife's fight, not his wife), Zanga, are my heroes. Milk-and-water paffions are like fentimental comedy. Give me (you fee, how, like your friend Montaigne, I ftrip myself of my fkin, and fhew you all my veins and arteries, even the playing of my heart)-give me, I fay, tragedy, affecting tragedy, in the world, as well as in the theatre.I would maffacre all mankind fooner than lofe you.

This is mere madness ;

And thus, awhile, the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove

When that her golden couplets are difclofed,
His filence will fit drooping.

Inconfiftent being! While I am ranting thus about tragedy, and blood, and murder-behold, I am as weak as a woman. My tears flow at but the